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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29741397">Third Person Limited</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secret_Pizza_Party/pseuds/Secret_Pizza_Party'>Secret_Pizza_Party</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Also No One Thinks They're Together, Everyone Thinks They're Together, F/M, Hera Syndulla Needs A Hug, Kanan Jarrus Needs a Hug, Matchmaking, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sassy Droids (Star Wars)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:08:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,216</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29741397</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secret_Pizza_Party/pseuds/Secret_Pizza_Party</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Are Hera and Kanan actually a couple? The rest of the crew has no idea, but that doesn't mean no one has <i>opinions</i> about whether they should be. Through the eyes of their crew, here are a few glimpses of that relationship from the outside.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>C1-10P | Chopper &amp; Hera Syndulla, C1-10P | Chopper &amp; Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger &amp; Sabine Wren, Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios &amp; Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus &amp; Sabine Wren, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Ezra</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Even after weeks aboard the Ghost, Ezra tended to approach Sabine in wary circles, inserting himself into her periphery, making sure she was aware of him before he would attempt to broach a conversation. In his experience, walking up on someone too fast could get you a blaster bolt straight to the face. Someday, those old walls would soften; someday, they'd come tumbling down, but he didn't know it then, not yet. Didn't yet grasp the scope of what he'd found here.</p><p>So while Zeb dozed in his and Ezra's room, and Chopper ran maintenance on the Phantom, while Hera and Kanan were in the cockpit, their soft voices just out of earshot, Ezra launched an opening volley at Sabine: "Um, hey."</p><p>"Hey yourself." She lay on her back in a hammock hung end-to-end along the corridor, so that she could paint on the ceiling. Hera had grumbled that the hammock was an evacuation hazard, but she also hadn't made Sabine take it down yet. "Hand me the can of blue paint there. Yeah, that one."</p><p>Ezra fetched it up out of the canvas bag lying in the middle of the floor (which seemed like another evacuation hazard, one that he didn't mention. He was unsure of his role here still, unsure how or if he fit in; but if he had a role, he knew it wasn’t Hera's). "Can I ask you a question?"</p><p>She grabbed the can from him without looking. "No, you can't help me."</p><p>"I wasn't--"</p><p>"And <em>no</em>, I'm not interested in you like that, so quit while you're ahead."</p><p>His face colored the same vibrant red as the starbirds she liked to mark on unguarded TIE fighters and Imperial cargo crates. "It's about Kanan. And Hera." He tried to fit his question into words, and failed. "It's about <em>Kanan and Hera</em>."</p><p>The paint can clattered as Sabine shook it vigorously. "Yeah? What about them?"</p><p>"I mean--are they … them?" He sounded like a stupid kid to his own ears, let alone to Sabine's. "Are they <em>together</em>? It's been three weeks and I still can't tell."</p><p>He braced for jokes--<em>Do you need a replacement mommy and daddy?</em>  Or maybe: <em>Hey, kid, you realize they're both a little too old for you?</em>--but Sabine pushed up to one elbow and peered over the side of her hammock at him. "I've been on this ship for a <em>year</em>," she said. "An entire year. And I have <em>no idea whatsoever</em>."</p><p>It was an immense relief to Ezra to realize he wasn't completely imagining things. He leaned toward Sabine. "I mean, Kanan has his own room, right? But the way they sit next to each other at briefings--"</p><p>"You've seen the way he looks at her; seriously, Kanan, get a <em>room,</em> you've got two between you both so just <em>pick</em> one, and--"</p><p>"And it's always, oh, don't do that, <em>love</em>; are you trying to get us all killed, <em>dear; </em>do that again and I'll murder you myself, <em>love</em>--"</p><p>Ezra's impression of Hera sent them both into paroxysms of smothered laughter. "Shh!" hissed Sabine, even though she'd been just as loud as him. "They'll hear you!"</p><p>They both angled their heads toward the cockpit. No change in the tenor of the conversation up there. Sabine leaned closer to Ezra, whispering now. "So, Zeb thinks Hera would never--" She waggled her eyebrows. "--with a member of her own crew. Too dangerous, if one of them was captured. The other might do something stupid, in the name of a daring rescue."</p><p>"What?! We do something stupid <em>all the time</em>."</p><p>"I know!" Sabine's head bobbed vigorously, bouncing the whole hammock. "That's pretty much what Zeb said too. 'Something stupid' shouldn't rule anything out here. And yet. Here we are. Living in our very own mystery-romance holodrama."</p><p>"Isn't it <em>weird</em> that we don't know one way or another? I mean, I think it's weird." Ezra turned these thoughts over and over in his mind. "Chopper must know! He's been with Hera forever."</p><p>This earned him an eye-roll from Sabine. "Oh yeah, go ahead. Ask Chopper. I <em>dare</em> you. Let me know how far that gets you."</p><p>"Okay, so he's not talking." That made sense. He was Hera's droid, inasmuch as he could be said to belong to anyone. "What do <em>you</em> think, Sabine?"</p><p>She sighed and rolled onto her back again. With a twist of her wrist, a cloud of blue paint rolled over the bare metal of the ceiling. At the edges, it faded to green where it overlapped with streaks of yellow. "I think Hera's all business, no pleasure. Sure, I think they've probably--<em>you know</em>--now and then when they can't help it. Everyone's gotta let off some steam sometimes, right?" She capped the can and rocked the hammock gently, admiring her handiwork. "But Hera's one true love is taking down the Empire. She's never going to be able to commit to anything real while the Imperial Forces are still kicking."</p><p>"Yeah," said Ezra, without meaning it. What Sabine said sounded true, but at the same time, it felt wrong. He changed the subject, jabbing a finger at Sabine's in-progress handiwork. "What are you painting, anyway?"</p><p>"The Lorikam Nebula. Pretty far out on the Rim, but it's a tourist spot for anyone rich enough to own their own pleasure cruiser. I've never been there, but I've seen it in holos. I think <em>everyone</em> should have a chance to see something like that, once in their lifetime." She glanced sideways. "You ever seen a holo of it?"</p><p>"No." He bit his lip, taking it in, as much of it as he could see around the hammock. "It's pretty."</p><p>"Thanks." Sabine flicked a paintbrush, sending a spattering of white-paint stars over her emerging nebula, and over her face and hair as well. "You didn't say what <em>you</em> thought about the two of them, Jedi Boy."</p><p>"Oh … I don't know," he lied. It felt silly to advance an opinion on people Sabine had known so long and he'd only just met. He leaned into the wall and watched Sabine work. "You're probably right."</p><p>But privately, he thought anyone with eyes or ears should be able to tell Hera and Kanan were in love with each other. It was painfully obvious. He just didn't know if <em>they</em> knew it yet. Adults could be incredibly stupid about the simplest things, sometimes.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Zeb</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A lifetime of finishing fights (and, yes, often as not starting them) had lent Zeb a certain eye to little details that might have escaped someone else. After they retrieved Kanan from the <em>Sovereign</em>, those little details hammered him constantly. The way that, the first time she'd seen him again, Hera's hand stayed on Kanan's chest just a few moments longer than she would have left it before; the solicitous glances, when she thought no one else was looking. The excuses they both made to touch one another: passing a datapad or a mug of kaf; fingers brushing against one another when they sat side by side in the common room.</p><p>The kids didn't notice, of course--each of them absorbed in their own private relief, their own lingering fears. As kids should be allowed to do, even the ones who grow up fighting for their lives and their freedom. <em>Especially</em> those.</p><p>As combat so often did, the rescue effort left Zeb amped up for days, ready for action at a moment's notice. One night, when he rolled out of his cot in the middle of a sleep shift and shuffled out into the corridor, he found a figure already there. He reached for a blaster that wasn't at his side where it should be--but it was only Hera, leaning against the open doorway of another room.</p><p>"… Hera?"</p><p>The deep lines furrowed into her brow smoothed immediately at Zeb's voice; whatever softness had been in her face froze over. She flipped the switch and Kanan's door whispered shut. "You should be sleeping," she said, over her shoulder, as she moved off to the common room. "You don't know when you'll next get the chance."</p><p>"Spoken like a true soldier And a bit of a hypocrite, eh?" He followed her anyway, to scrounge up a midnight snack (it had to be midnight on <em>some</em> planet right now) while she scrolled through a holo of mission specs. "You hungry?"</p><p>"No. Thank you." Her eyes darted back and forth, up and down. Zeb tried, for a while, to read the mission specs backward through the wrong side of the holo, and quickly gave up. He was just nudging the crumbs out of a ration bar wrapper when she said, as if confessing something: "Usually he knows I'm there. Even when he's been sleeping."</p><p>"Well, torture will take a lot out of a guy." It was the wrong thing to say and Zeb knew it at even as the stupid, clumsy words came out of his mouth. Hera looked away while he cleared his throat and inspected the empty wrapper as if it might hold the secret to polite conversation. He <em>should</em> offer to be a listening ear; where else was she going to get one? The rest of her crew was composed of a bad-tempered droid and a couple of literal children. At least Zeb only <em>acted</em> like a child sometimes.</p><p>But the parental role had never come as easily to him as it had to her or Kanan. "Look," he said, and crushed the wrapper in his massive fist. "You had to make a tough choice. For the rebellion, or for your crew. You wanted to do the right thing. But, Hera … sometimes there just isn't one."</p><p>That wasn't the wrong thing to say, but it wasn't quite the <em>right</em> thing, either, not the heart of what he'd wanted to drive at. But Hera smiled anyway. Why was talking to people so hard? Ezra hardly ever shut up at all despite not having a single worthwhile thought bouncing around in his head.</p><p>"I think there was a right thing, though," Hera said, saving Zeb from having to navigate his next lines. "And I didn't see it for what it was. Protecting this family is the same thing as protecting the Rebellion. I should have understood that." She reached out and squeezed his hand, her fingers barely covering his first knuckle. "Any of you would have done the same, if it were me in his place. And, in turn, I should have been prepared to go back for any of you."</p><p>And that wasn't it at all, that didn't begin to broach the complicated calculus of the decision she'd made and broken. She hadn't been afraid to go back for Kanan because it jeopardized their greater mission. She'd refused because risking the Ghost on his behalf would have been, to her, an impossible selfishness; a luxury, even, denied to so many who'd lost to the Empire without hope of return. It had taken Zeb and the kids to seize that selfishness; because sometimes you <em>had</em> to have a sense of self, didn't you? You couldn't let the Empire grind away all that you were and all that you cared about, until you forgot why you were fighting.</p><p>But … Hera had. So here she sat, picking at the scabs of her own guilt. Guilt because she'd wanted to go after him at all; guilt that she hadn't done so right away.</p><p>In a war, guilt turned a mediocre leader into a good one, one that wouldn't spill her troops' blood too readily and for too little gain. Guilt also took great leaders and blunted them into mediocrity, second-guessing their every move. Hera needed to give hers a close look, learn what she could from hers, and then set it aside. But who was going to tell her that? Zeb? Ha--not likely.</p><p>The only person who could tell her something like that was the only person she would never take these thoughts to.</p><p>"I should get some sleep," Zeb said, uncomfortably. He turned his hand so that hers slid away. "If I can manage."</p><p>"Yes. You should. That would be the smart thing for both of us to do right now." Hera's smile was tired, but it made it to her eyes. Zeb smiled back instinctively, then ducked out of the common room before the expression ebbed away. </p><p>Of course Hera loved her whole crew, but she loved Kanan differently. For a moment there, it had looked like she wouldn't figure that out until it was too late. And now … it looked that way again.</p><p>Well. Their business was theirs, not Zeb's. They were both adults, too.</p><p>Zeb lay down to sleep, but sleep still did its best to avoid him. After another hour or two of lying there staring at the underside of Ezra's bunk, contemplating kicking it just because an argument would be something to <em>do</em>, he heard the door across the hall open once more. By the time he lifted his head from his bunk, listening, it hissed closed again.</p><p>Because Hera had gone into Kanan's room this time? Because she'd changed her mind the second the door opened, and run away again? Or maybe Kanan had just gotten up to use the refresher. Zeb had half a mind to haul himself out of bed and see for himself. But weariness had made its untimely arrival, and the gravity of his bunk had become too much for him to overcome. This time, when he blinked his eyes, they stayed shut.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Sabine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was only later that Sabine could forgive Kanan for not being angrier that Hera was injured. Later, <em>much</em> later; after they'd returned, victorious, with the captive Fenn Rau and a tenuous alliance with the Protectors; after they'd rejoined the fleet to find Hera awake and able to congratulate them on their efforts.</p><p>Maybe it was the Mandalorian in her that eschewed mealy-mouthed Jedi pacificism, that understood that when part of your family was hurt, you went out there and <em>hurt right back</em>; maybe it was her own guilt, seeking out its echo in him and finding only silence. And maybe it was wrong to hate him a little for this terrible calm of his--but wasn't it worse to be unmoved when someone you loved had veered so close to the line between life and death? Someone that you were <em>supposed</em> to love?</p><p>Not an ounce of anger before; and though joy was there now, he barely let it show through. He didn't tell Hera how worried he'd been, how worried they'd all been. He didn't even hold her hand--Sabine wanted him to just <em>hold Hera's hand</em>! Would he have done so, if Sabine wasn't there? She didn't think so.</p><p>So even if she could forgive, she couldn't quite let herself forget.</p><p>"I don't understand you," she said, when the medical droid had ushered them out so that Hera could get some badly-needed rest. Weariness took the edge off her words, and made a blunt weapon of them instead of a sharp one. "I'm not mad anymore but … I just don't understand you and I'm not sure I want to."</p><p>Kanan sighed heavily, moving off down the corridor ahead of her. "Are we arguing diplomacy versus going in swinging again? Because I need a hot drink and a nap before I go another round on that one."</p><p>"Not <em>that</em>!" She double-stepped to get in front of him, jabbing a finger into his chest. "I'm talking about <em>her</em>!"</p><p>Kanan lowered her hand, gently but decisively. "I think we're veering into <em>none of your business</em> territory, Sabine."</p><p>"No, she is absolutely my business, just like Ezra is, and Zeb, and Chopper. And even you, however big of an idiot you are. Kanan, she almost died!"</p><p>"Sabine. When something happens to Hera, I <em>do not have</em> the luxury of coming apart."</p><p>He said that so calmly, too, that she could almost have missed the strain that held that calm together. "Kanan--"</p><p>A strange half-smile ghosted over Kanan's face, and that was yet another thing Sabine didn't understand. "Look. We brought her in, safe and in one piece. She'll always come home to me." A hasty amendment: "To us. She <em>always</em> will. Don't you see that? I don't believe for one moment she'd ever let it happen otherwise. And neither would we. Now come on, kid." His hand clapped on her shoulder and turned her, steered her forward. "It's late. We both need something to eat and four hours' sleep, minimum."</p><p>Something about the way he said all that threw a switch in Sabine's brain, but the argument jumped the track unspoken. She let herself be shuffled along the corridor, but she was still chewing over her frustration; his actions forgiven but no, never forgotten. She would remember this conversation years later, though, and the question on her tongue that she had swallowed instead of speaking. <em>Kanan, will </em>you<em> always come home to </em>her<em>?</em></p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chopper</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Apparently, when an organic being lost a part of its sensory suite, there was no way to uninstall the system and replace the damaged parts. An outrageously sloppy design, in Chopper's opinion; but no one had asked <em>him</em> about how best to build a human. A gross oversight, obviously.</p><p>All of the Ghost's crew thought of Hera as theirs, but actually, in point of fact, and by common law in at least 37 systems, she belonged first and foremost to Chopper, by dint of the length of their relationship. Accordingly, he treated her like any decent droid would treat its most loyal organic attendant. He guarded her secrets and her privacy from the rest of the crew--except for Kanan, around whom all of those secrets and privacy always seemed to revolve.</p><p>But when Ezra brought Kanan home broken (warranty <em>ridiculously</em> voided), all of a sudden, she left no secrets to be kept. Not because she finally decided to share them with the others, to say, <em>yes, it is true, I have been having physical and emotional interactions with this human male, both of which are totally disgusting to anyone with reasonable aesthetic principles; no, no, please save all your annoying organic squealing and/or ocular leakage, it is really quite vile and no one likes it. </em></p><p>No! Instead, she withdrew from her damaged human altogether. At first Chopper supposed that the facial alterations had made Kanan too unappealing for her to look at. But then he realized that Hera wasn't the kind of organic to whom looks mattered much--obviously, since Kanan had been plenty hideous beforehand, too, and she'd been willing enough to intermittently mash her face against his then.</p><p>After some contemplation, Chopper arrived at explanation by way of analogy. If you were flying on a damaged hyperdrive, he reasoned, you went easy on it, so that you didn't fry it altogether. So perhaps she was playing it safe to avoid driving her human into a total systemic shutdown.</p><p>But then, if you were flying on a bad hyperdrive … at some point, you had to stop into a spaceport and let a mechanic pull the wretched thing open to fix what was wrong.</p><p>Chopper was a perfectly good mechanic, but no one was stopping and asking him to fix <em>anything</em>. Well! Sometimes you had to handhold your organics all the way to the finish line. He would just have to take matters into his own manipulators!</p><p>Obviously he had no background in wetwork; Kanan's busted visual sensors were simply not salvageable. If he was going to fix anything, it would have to be something more nebulous. Organic emotional/social dynamics were so messy, the kind of thing only a truly sadistic systems engineer would manufacture. It was lucky then for Chopper’s organics that he had such a deft touch!</p><p>He waited to catch Kanan and Hera alone in the common room one day: at opposite ends, each one pretending the other wasn't there while clearly, painfully aware of their presence. Chopper considered Hera first, where she hunched over a datapad crunching the numbers on Phoenix squadron's fuel supplies. No good going after her first--about the only thing Chopper could say to her right now that would get her attention would be to announce that he was about to set the Ghost on fire. And he’d already used <em>that</em> little trick a time too many in the past.</p><p>So he swiveled instead to Kanan, who was scraping the last sauce out of a ration pack. Kanan didn't acknowledge him, but that was hardly unusual. And as far as Chopper knew, Kanan’s auditory systems weren’t integrated with his ocular hadware, so they ought to be online and operational.</p><p>He beeped loudly for attention. Now that Kanan was blind, he suggested, via a series of blats and burbles, he would finally have an excuse for his inability to hit the broad side of a bantha with the Ghost's turret gun!</p><p>"<em>Chopper!</em>" Hera slammed her datapad down on the table. "What did you just say?"</p><p>He rumbled innocently. Or tried to. He'd never been very good at "innocent", really.</p><p>"Hera." Kanan's hand came to rest on Chopper's dome. Chopper couldn't see up there, of course, nor did he have tactile sensors in that part of his chassis, but he could detect the light sound of organic skin on metal. Well, some thanks that was! Now Chopper was going to have to have a good thorough cleaning. Didn't organics understand they left fingerprints on <em>everything</em>? "He's trying to get a rise out of you."</p><p>More than <em>trying</em>, thank you very much, Mr. Big Greasy Organic Man. Chopper had quite clearly succeeded.</p><p>The omnipresent frown on Hera's face lately deepened as she look between the two of them. "Chopper, is that true? "</p><p>Kanan sighed. His hand slid off Chopper’s dome. <em>More</em> fingerprints. "He's trying to get the two of us to gang up against him."</p><p>"But why would he--oh. <em>Chopper</em>."</p><p>Chopper was not sorry, and he informed her so, waving his manipulator arms over his dome. He was leaving now, he added, since his efforts were not properly appreciated, and the organics were expected to work this out for themselves.</p><p>And he <em>did</em> leave, though of course he went directly to a wall socket and plugged in to spy on whatever was happening in his absence. The ship's security vid didn't have sound, but he had plenty of experience reading organic lips. It was frankly an improvement to omit the wet, flappy mouth noises altogether.</p><p>"--so fragile," Hera was saying. Neither of them had moved from their starting positions, at the far ends of the room; Chopper clanged himself on his own dome in frustration. "All of you. All of <em>this</em>--the Rebellion. How can we try to build something sturdier on that foundation?"</p><p>"I understand. If you need someone on this crew who isn't--if you need someone who can do the things I can't now--"</p><p>"Do <em>not</em> finish that sentence, Kanan."</p><p>Kanan drew in a deep breath, as if to heave a heavy sigh, but it came out of him slowly, his shoulders rolling forward as emotion lost its grip on him. "I'm not asking you for forever, Hera."</p><p>"Maybe you don't <em>think</em> you are, no. But I can see all the strings attached, and it would be so easy to get tangled up in them, it would feel so good--for a while. Until it all comes apart on me. The Rebellion has to come first, or else what has all this been <em>for</em>?"</p><p>"What is it for," he said, "if we don't believe there can be a better life on the other side of it?"</p><p>She set the datapad carefully aside and stared at it for a while, as if it might contain the answers she was looking for. Obviously it didn't, but in Chopper's opinion she would have done better to ask a computer, even a stupid handheld one, for help than to try to compute a solution in a mushy organic brain. Chopper groaned and banged his dome against the wall once more.</p><p>But then, <em>finally</em>, Hera stood. Kanan's head lifted, at the sound of the movement or some shift in his mystical organic woo-woo magic thing, but he didn't rise. A smart calculation, for once. No sudden movements--push too hard now, and she would get spooked. Flee. Back to square one. It had always been like this: him waiting in orbit, her in motion. Reflecting her own light back to her. And it would always have to be. Kanan was an absolute idiot, albeit a cut above the average organic, but he'd always understood Hera that well, at least. Chopper wouldn't go so far as to say he <em>liked</em> the Jedi, but he liked that much about him.</p><p>Still, when Hera stopped in front of Kanan, her hands on his shoulders, his face tilting up, hers descending, Chopper killed the security feed just before their lips touched. While he couldn't actually hear those particularly egregious mouth noises, it was bad enough just knowing they were happening. He trundled off toward the cockpit instead. <em>Someone</em> had to be in charge of keeping this rustbucket of a ship flying, after all, and it seemed to take a droid to get anything done around here.</p>
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